My students want a club website that they can edit, post pictures on, ask and answer questions, etc. I want to have total control over what appears on the website. Should I use Facebook for this?

I think the best tool for this situation is a class blog. You can use WordPress.com to create a free class blog with options to add students as contributors, meaning they can write articles for the blog, but the articles won’t appear until the teacher approves them. You also have the option to allow visitors to leave comments, but those comments are moderated by the teacher prior to appearing on the blog. For your convenience, you can choose to receive an email whenever a comment awaits approval. You can reference my WordPress handout, email me and I’ll get you started.

The District has recently published a Social Networking Best Practices document for our staff’s reference.

I found a video on YouTube that I want to use in a PowerPoint slideshow. How can I make that happen?

First, since YouTube is blocked at school you will have to do this at home, or ask me to do it for you. I charge a small few for such services….not really. ;>) Zamzar is a free online tool for downloading and converting video files. Here are the steps:

*The email will contain a link for you to click to go to the Zamzar website to download the converted video file. This link is good for up to 1 day from receipt of email message. This process of taking the video from YouTube to Zamzar, converting, and downloading to your station takes several minutes.